We’ve undertaken enforcement proceedings in Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and France. We’re preparing others. In Luxembourg, we froze assets in Luxembourg banks belonging to Malaysia. We also froze the assets of two Luxembourg subsidiaries of Petronas associated with Petronas’s stake in a gas field in Azerbaijan. That was in 2022. Petronas made a public statement that the Luxembourg company accounts were empty, but nonetheless asked the Luxembourg courts to release the funds! In early 2023, a Luxembourg judge temporarily lifted the freezes on a technicality; we corrected the issue shortly thereafter, and the freezes were reimposed. The seizures remain the subject of ongoing litigation.

In the Netherlands, we launched an action to enforce in 2023. The appellate court denied the motion. The Dutch Supreme Court is currently reviewing.

In France, the Court of Appeal stayed enforcement of the big Final Award, pending appeals (the Final Award has not yet been before the Court of Appeal).

But Malaysia already owed unpaid fees for the Preliminary Award. Enforcement of this debt had not been stayed.

So, we put charges on Malaysian properties in Paris (contrary to Malaysian reports, these were not diplomatic properties – those are immune from seizure.)

When the Court of Appeal reversed the recognition in France of the Preliminary Award June 2023, we agreed to remove these charges, for now. As you will have read elsewhere on this site, that Court of Appeal decision is currently under review by the French Supreme Court.